[FRC Blog] Radio Silence

[cbale2000]

Originally Posted by frcguy

I completely disagree. The camera feed on our driver station was extremely important to us this year. We played several matches without it, and it made it extremely hard for our driver to line up a shot, and I am very confident we are not the only ones to rely on a camera this year. Although I understand there are connection issues, taking a brute force approach and taking away something that teams use is a little absurd. I am sure that we can find a solution that works for everyone.

Don't get me wrong, having a live feed is extremely useful, but if you had the choice of possibly spotty camera connectivity / low fps but near-perfect control connectivity, or a single connection point that will leave you dead on the field for half the match if ANYTHING goes wrong, which would you pick?

Personally I'd rather have continuous control and a possibly temperamental camera connection than the chance of having my whole robot parked on the field doing nothing. I also think that, if the rules continue to allow driver station cameras, it will eliminate much of the need on-board cameras due to the far better framerate and resolutions possible with such a setup. On-board cameras are still great for targeting, but there are plenty of ways to score a goal reliably that don't require a live video link.